First things first. There is, absolutely, NO device made that will protect anything from a direct lightning strike.
A lightning strike can occur 10 or more miles away and will follow ANYTHING that will convey it to ground, including coax, telephone cable and power line. BUT, if you install protection, that is, AC line, CO trunks and OPX/OPE you have a good chance of avoiding disaster.
Anyone who installs telephone equipment, whether SIP, POTS on Copper or Comcast, etc. and does NOT use protection is only gambling and will eventually pay the piper.
IF you install protection, you MUST insure that ground is actually GROUND and not some high resistance fake ground. Not only should the protection devices be grounded, they must be bonded.
We use surge protection on ANYTHING that is connected to the KSU or PBX. I don't care who the provider is, anything metallic is a potential path for lightning.
By the way....Comcast equipment barely meets UL approval. There IS NO protection in their equipment. I have seen their boxes melted and burned to a crisp and our KSU running like nothing happened. THAT'S the value of full protection.
Rcaman
